Perspectives: Choice lies in the bedroom, not at pregnancy; common sense morality

Picketers in front of Planned Parenthood on the 40th Anniversary of Roe v Wade, St. George, Utah, Jan. 22, 2013 | Photo by Chris Caldwell, St. George News

OPINION – Of all the topics we discuss on our morning show, abortion is one of the more fiery among them and provokes some of the strongest opinions I have ever heard.

Of course, the topic has been discussed, analyzed and debated for years. Over the course of the last 50 years, our society has adopted a very strong position on being entitled to act on our selfish desires.

If it feels good, do it.

If I like it, then it’s right.

Sex is an enjoyable act, everyone is doing it, and it’s a healthy part of growing up.

Sex with multiple partners is not only accepted, it’s celebrated as a passage of our youth.

The desire for sex is so strong, how dare we propose that people try to control their innate desires?

No wonder we have adjusted our values to excuse immorality. No wonder we have justified abortion as birth control.

We simply had to. If we justify sex as a right of youthful passage, knowing this can result in unwanted pregnancy, the next step would be to diminish the consequence of what sex can produce. It shouldn’t surprise any of us. We do not advocate reining in or controlling our desires, we only seek to justify indulging in our desires at any cost.

In aborting a pregnancy, we are in essence putting our lives above the life of another; we tell ourselves that we matter more than that unborn child.

Selfishness has always been the biggest catalyst to erode our morality since the dawn of time. Adulterers cheat and break commitments to a spouse because desire gets the best of them. Athletes cheat with drugs because they seek after the glory and the accolades of a successful career. We cheat on tests to get the “A.” Our self-interest trumps everything. We are steeped in debt as a nation because of a selfish desire to have everything we want, when we want it. We don’t have to pay it back, we can bankrupt out of owing our debtors anything. We escape our consequences with ease.

Sex is a vehicle to procreate and form new life; it is also a vehicle to bond two people together. If we reduce sex to a “sport” or a fun activity, we minimize its power, value and importance. It stands to reason, then, that we must reduce the baby or life that was created to merely a “seed,” a blob of tissue or a soulless organism. We would much rather rid ourselves of a “blob” than to admit to killing a baby.

Abortionists will use the two main arguments: The baby would stand in the way of the life I have wished for or the baby deserves more than what I am capable of giving. Well, at least give the baby life and hopeful couples looking to adopt can take it from there.

To someone making the case for pro-life, common sense can be a hard sell.

If you have to stop something from growing, you must kill it. Because you change the wording from kill to “choice” does not change the action of stopping it from growing. It does sound softer though. “Pro-kill” probably wouldn’t get a huge following.

Just because you can’t see the baby, doesn’t mean it does not exist.

If a pregnancy is the result of having sex, and a pregnancy is not what you want in your life, then abstain from sex. I love chocolate. If I eat too much of it, I get fat. If I do not want to be fat, I do not eat it regardless of my desire for it. When you made the choice to have sex to enable a pregnancy to happen, your “choice” was already made. Your right as a woman to control what happens to your body started in the bedroom; not the moment the pregnancy test affirmed your worst fears.

There are two words I excluded from this article on purpose. God and “wrong.” Have those words heavily influenced my moral code and my values? Yes. But, I choose not to state my beliefs leaning on religious beliefs or condemnation, rather to state them only leaning on common sense and the decline of morality I see as we desire to excuse ourselves from consequences.

We do not want to be told we are selfish or that abortion is wrong. Yes, we can have empathy and compassion for anyone having to go through a pregnancy that was not desired; yet, it’s even more apparent to me that society needs to embrace a higher standard of morals and values when contemplating our actions. We need to understand the power of our choices before they are made. We need to understand and value the sanctity of life.

After all, anyone reading this article was already given the gift of life. It would seem rather hypocritical to assume that we have the right to life and that our lives matter, but another may not.

Kate Dalley is a news commentator and co-host of the Perspectives morning show on Fox News 1450 AM 93.1 FM. The opinions stated in this article are hers and not representative of St. George News.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.

Picketers in front of Planned Parenthood on the 40th Anniversary of Roe v Wade, St. George, Utah, Jan. 22, 2013 | Photo by Sarafina Amodt, St. George News

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Dalley is from Mission Viejo, Calif., and has been residing in Washington County, Utah, since 1995. She has an extensive background in sales and marketing and has made appearances on various shows such as "Oprah" and CBS's "Women to Women." Kate has owned businesses in the internet marketing field, has designed her own product line of products for Wal-Mart and even produced a line of products for a professional dancer on Dancing With The Stars, to name a few of her adventures. She loves PR consulting, writing. As a public speaker, Kate loves empowering women to reach their own goals. She is currently the co-host of Fox News AM 1450 Persectives Show with Bryan Hyde. She is also a married, mother of 5 and loves every minute of her crazy life.

So even though the embryo is capable of growing into a full viable human being, it is not killing? Um, you can think whatever you want to make yourself feel better, but the facts are that it is as alive as you are, and to “End a pregnancy” is to remove any life in that embryo. It’s not a spleen, it’s not a gall bladder.
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If you are responsible enough to have sex, you are responsible enough to live with the consequence. The problem with society is it continuously removes moral standards, and sanctity of life, and then complains when things like New town and Aurora happen. It’s OK to kill 300,000 children but we’ll be astonished when someone guns down others.

A very common sense article to me….. I know a lot of our ‘Don’t tell me what to think’ neighbors might say Butt Out and disagree, To them I say ‘Excuse me!, but I was addressing your parents and my children with my opinion..

I would like to point out something that is lacking in this article. Education. The article and viewpoint, while valid, implies that people willing participate in promiscuous behavior without worry of the consequences solely because they give into their urges. While there are people who have a hard time resisting their urges (be it sex, drugs, chocolate, religion, or what have you), it is a grand assumption to simply group everyone into this type of addictive stereotype. We live in Utah. The state does not support teaching anything but abstinence in Sex Ed. classes. If we want to lower the pregnancy rate (and also lower the abortion rate), we need to educate our children better. Sex is a sacred and divine act and should not be shunned or treated as a taboo subject in conversations with our children (or friends). To use your chocolate example: You state that there are two options. (1) Eat chocolate and become unhealthy or (2) restrain from chocolate and stay healthy. But there are other options as well. If we have the knowledge of how our body produces energy and how food relates with said process, we can balance occasional chocolate into our diet without losing our health. Am I saying everyone should eat chocolate occasionally as long as they learn how to balance it? No. (That is their choice and there are other things in life that should go into account before someone decides to eat chocolate.) I’m saying that we can’t just say, “If you eat chocolate you will become fat. Therefore it’s only logical to not eat chocolate and stay skinny.” It is the same with sex. We need to be honest and open about it and discuss it with our children as they grow up. There are a lot of teenagers that go through high school having never learned anything other than, “Don’t have sex until you’re married.” If these kids do end up giving into an urge before anyone educates them on risks and preventative measures, they are less likely to make decisions that would prevent a pregnancy. If you want to lower abortion rates and stop the killing of unborn children, then you need to support educating people about sex and contraceptives.

Casey: those are some pretty good points, but you’re conclusion does not follow from them. The reason I say that is because where people are educated about sex and contraceptives all over the country, especially in places like where I grew up in Seattle, and that has done the exact opposite with abortion numbers and rates. That’s just a fact and I can support it. Here’s a link to King County’s(Greater Seattle Area) abortion statistics from . 1997-2010: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/usac/ab-usac-WA.html

Seattle, Washington is about as well educated and mainstream a city as you can get, and it definitely teaches alot more about sex education than other places, definitely more so than here. That site also has the % of aborted pregnancies by state under the rates, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/index.html#UC.
So you’ve got both for a reference. These statistics are obviously in favor of the opposite of your conclusion. Taking these into consideratin, it would appear that where there is sex education of the type you are talking about and including the promotion of contraceptives, there is an enormous increase in abortions, both by number and by percentage.
I’d argue that Seattle is more worldly and sexually educated than St George, but…seriously do I have to?

Roy, thank you for the statistical websites. I haven’t had a chance to peruse them fully but am curious to see what the statistics are. I feel like availability of abortion and mind-set towards it has a part in why the statistics are higher in King County compared to Washington; not to mention the population difference. But those are my opinions and, while I’m curious how they affect the overall statistics, have no way of applying these points in quantitative terms. The facts, at least at surface level, stand more in your favor. Either way, I think we can all agree that our society, in general, has issues that it needs to work through.

I absolutely agree that abortion should not be treated as birth control. But I also believe that abortion should definitely be an option when medically necessary, like in cases of an ectopic pregnancy, or in cases of rape or incest. And, if abortion is to be available for people in those circumstances, then there is the natural risk that some people will misuse abortion. Just like I support the 2nd amendment right to bear arms, knowing that it includes the risk that guns will be misused, I believe in women’s right to access to abortion, even at the risk of misuse.

Also, I grew up in a very conservative household and didn’t have sex until I was married. But my parents did a very poor job of educating me about sex. I overheard my dad talking to my mom about one of my brothers, saying “If we don’t teach him how sex works, he can’t get into trouble”. I agree with Casey as far as educating our children go. I think it’s cruel to not teach our children what their bodies are capable of, when they are capable of it. When I got married I was still under the impression that birth control was sinful, like a very early term abortion (many conservative groups still feel this way about birth control) my parents had never taught me that it was acceptable for a wife to say “no” to the sexual demands of her husband. What a sad set of circumstances I could have been in if I had not educated myself about sex.

Casey,
I absolutely agree on education. I realize total abstinence doesn’t always work. But we have become a culture that dates using sex as a get to know you tool. I was addressing the decline of morality. Most liberals find morality oppressive. Morality actually frees us from having to make choices like abortion. Sex education is a whole separate issue to maybe address in another column. I liked your points and yes I believe in education and birth control.

Mrs. Dalley,
Thank you for your response and clarification. I agree that Sex Education is probably best left to be dealt with in a separate column, but this article could have touched on it. This article is well written, but it leaves the reader thinking about their stance on abortion more than their stance on moral choices. Now that you have clarified your position, I can see that as a case you were presenting. Morality is a hard topic to sum into a single page article. I hope you understand that I am not trying to pick your article apart. I understand this is considered an opinion article and simply wanted to voice my opinion as well and, hopefully, get people to think about a few more of the underlying factors involved.

The occasional chocolate is not bad for you. In fact dark chocolate is extremely good for your health. If you are going to eat chocolate, be responsible.Brush your teeth afterwards. Don’t eat it too sparingly. Choose a healthy chocolate.
WHO is your targeted demographic? If you check the facts, abortion rates are at an all time low. So are teen pregnancy rates. People are being smarter than you give them credit for. Just because they aren’t abstaining, which in your personal opinion is the only way to not have babies, doesn’t mean they are being dopes. Are they being immoral? From your standpoint. Really all you’ve succeeded to do in this article from my standpoint is ….-shame, but newsflash- society already ….-shames. You may think it doesn’t since our media supports shows like desperate housewives and whatever other garbage, that our ads show more and more skin every day. But the reason society still ….-shames is because people like you, who have every right to voice their opinions, voice the opinion that their morals are right and everyone elses are wrong and if vary from my norm, I will call you dirty names and make you feel bad about yourself.
So there’s our society. Thanks for writing up a whole article that spread absolutely no new ideas, that spreads an idea that people are shamed, raped (Stuebenville), and even killed for being less holy than thou.

I was raised and am still Catholic, but am also a modern woman who’s been able to accept less than traditional views on this subject. I believe abortion should be allowed, but ONLY in the case of rape, incest, birth defects or other health complications. Yes, it may be the easiest option for some expectant mothers, such as teen girls, women who don’t have the money to support a child, women in an abusive relationship, etc., to have an abortion, but it’s not right by the child. That child could be a perfectly healthy, happy and successful adult one day if given the chance. Or it could have a hard and troubled life full of struggle. There’s no way of knowing which would happen if you don’t give the child a chance.

And yes, abstinence works, but it’s not the only way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and irresponsible sexual activity. Educate your children about sex. Use protection if you want to have sex without having children. Be smart, because the minute two people create a life, that is their responsibility until the day they die.

Whereas I understand and sympathize with the moral and philosophical argument of this piece, I’m interested to know what the practical implications are. In other words, what will be your enforcement mechanism if you outlaw abortion?
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Will we create another sizable government bureaucracy to track and monitor pregnancies? A Division of Pregnancy and Brooding? Will we have another War on Drugs except this can be a War on Abortion? We’ve made all sorts of drugs illegal and have a huge State law enforcement presence devoted to enforcing all this. How’s that working out?
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And I’m still interested in the conflict between all life being sacred, and exceptions in the case of rape. Here’s an idea, make the woman carry the rapist’s baby to term but then make the rapist responsible for it for the next 18 years. That’ll show him. And the life will be spared. A win-win. For pro-lifers.
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And this whole heavy-handed idea about personal responsibility, even in the face of medical advances. Should the insurance provider refuse to cover the cost of your cholesterol meds or stint and bypass procedures because you ate like a pig? Seems pretty consistent. Yes, yes, I know, the morning after pill is just like murdering a newborn infant. And personal responsibility when it comes to health isn’t anything like being responsible for pregnancy, regardless of how it commences.
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Is there really no such thing as nuance anymore?

I am glad I made mistakes like cheating on a test in grade school and had parents and teachers who,throughout my life,that helped me learn morality,responsibility, respect for myself and others. By the time I became a mature woman I was also taught to appreciate the gifts I had been given as a woman, and the responsibilities that came with them.

I was also taught that many things in life are private,many times between parents,physicians and partners.
I refer to the woman holding the sign in the photo , “Get your God out of my athiest uterus”.
Absolutely to much information. She demeans women,athiests and herself. To her I would say ,it does not matter if you believe in God or not,what matters is that while on this earth we value all life and use and appreciate all of our organs,including our brains. She appears to lack an appreciation for privacy,decency and common sense and herself.